Deployment....and reflections on a year on Guam

Plumeria flowers that are everywhere here. They smell sooo good!
Hibiscus, also everywhere, but they don't smell like anything
Samuel cuddling with Daddy
Thanks for the outfit Uncle Aaron & Aunt Marina
Not sure what this flower is
trying to keep his balance while going downhill
on an evening walk
getting ready for bed

Our little guy, 12 months.

It is hard to believe, but we are approaching the 1 year mark of being here on Guam. I have enjoyed it very much: the slower pace of life here, the close-knit community, the warm, genuine church we've been attending, perpetual summer, outdoor activities, and a part-time job as a community pediatrician that has actually been going well. Rudi has been enjoying all of the things about Guam that I have, including my job, but he does get a little "island fever" from time to time. This island fever recently has been compounded by the fact that he broke his right wrist and separated his left shoulder about 7 weeks ago in a mountain biking accident (thank God he didn't get hurt worse). This has kept him from, surprise, mountain biking, but also weight lifting and running (though he's running again now). One thing that has been frustrating is the bureaucracy of the navy. It is very frustrating at times,

and feels very anonymous, but he is grateful for where he is and what he is doing. He feels especially grateful for the enlisted young men and women-particularly the corpsmen with whom he works every day-and is glad to serve those who are sacrificing so much at a young age.

So what's the deal with deployment? Well, we knew when we came out here to Guam that Rudi would pretty much 100% be deploying once during our three years of service that he owes. With the US involved in Iraq still (well, at least they still need docs over there to support the troops that remain), and now Afghanistan, the rate of doctors deploying to support Army and Marine troops has increased over the last year. We have known that Rudi's turn to deploy would be sometime this coming fall, winter, or spring. But with several colleagues of Rudi's in line to deploy before him, we figured it was several months off still. However, due to a couple of changes, Rudi is now up to go in AUGUST.

Rudi is scheduled to go to Iraq with the Marines sometime in August/September. His training starts at the beginning of August at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where we expect him to be for around a month. His deployment is scheduled to extend to March/April of 2010. We're not sure where in Iraq he's going yet--not sure when we'll find that out.

Samuel and I are planning to fly to NC with Rudi at the beginning of August and stay in Charlotte with family (can't wait to see you, Charis, Bobby, Keely, Candace, Mick, Natalia, Moses). That way, if Rudi gets a few days off here or there during his training, we'll get to see him! Some of Rudi's pals that have been through training at Lejeune said that they got multiple days off during training where they easily could have visited family if they were nearby. Hopefully, seeing him in August will help as it cuts off one month of our separation.

Obviously, I am sick about the upcoming separation that our family will have to endure. Part of me thinks it shouldn't be a big deal because thousands of Navy families deal with similar situations every year. Some go through deployments that are a year or even 15 months. Some are families of combat soldiers that are in more dangerous situations than our doctors. But the bottom line is that no matter what, this 9 month deployment will not be easy on Rudi, me or our families.

I am taking about 5 months leave from my job. It is a huge blessing that I have a job where I can say, "my husband is deploying and I need to take the baby and go to the States until January...will I have a job when I get back?" And get the response, "of course..." I guess there are no guarantees as I've signed no contracts, so we'll see. One thing that does stress me out, though is all the doctor-patient relationships that I've formed over the past several months that will be cut off for a while. I just feel bad for some of the families that decided to come to our clinic, counting on there being a pediatrician here. Hopefully they understand, I don't know what else to do because staying here the ENTIRE time Rudi is gone seems like too much.

My biggest hope (besides Rudi staying absolutely safe during his deployment and travels) is that Rudi and I will each grow in faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Please be in prayer that this is the case. Because of our laziness and Samuel's poor sleeping (no excuses, though!), we are pretty irregular about our devotional time. And of course there is the never-ending problem of us falling asleep while praying and not praying enough. We're trying to work on that now, and hopefully we'll be able to work on that during deployment. We do believe that God is a good God and has a plan for us. This deployment is not beyond God and we need to focus on the fact that this is all within His purpose, and that at no point will we be out of His loving care.

I've included some Samuel pics and pics of flowers around where we live to brighten the post.

Reflections on smallpox

As part of getting ready for deployment, Rudi recently was vaccinated against smallpox. For those of you who haven't been vaccinated (I haven't either, so I have no first-hand experience) or who don't know about the vaccine, it is different than your standard "shot." The vaccine is administered by poking a vaccine-dipped, solid, two-prong needle in the upper arm 15 times in rapid succession. Afterwards, if you are appropriately developing immunity to smallpox, your arm will develop an itchy, fairly large, nasty blister at the vaccination site. This will eventually scab over and then leave a scar. If you're interested in details on the immunization, check the CDC site on it here.

I have posted pictures of Rudi's smallpox vaccination site below. His vaccination site has been so itchy that it wakes him up at night sometimes. He shows me the blister from time to time, and it is dramatic--oozing, pus-filled. This solitary spot on Rudi's arm serves as a reminder of the disease that covered its victims with hundreds of such disfiguring, painful, oozing wounds. And as if that wasn't enough, estimates are that 30-60% of the victims, as if they hadn't suffered enough, were killed outright from this virus. 

We googled smallpox and found gruesome images of children covered in the lesions. I am not being morbid for fun--I think it is important for us to remember that vaccines have rid the world of this disease! And also thanks to the smallpox vaccine, the general population doesn't even have to go through the discomfort of getting vaccinated against the disease anymore.

Vaccines have received a lot of negative press recently due to their supposed causal relationship with autism (however, a recent study again showed no link between MMR vaccine and autism), so I think it is important to remember that a terrible and painful pathogen has been eliminated from the planet thanks to vaccination! Sure, any medical treatment should be re-examined continually to ensure that it is not causing undue harm. However, I have heard too many people say, "what's so bad about the measles...." I won't go into the measles (or any of the other vaccine-preventable illnesses), but I would just like to highlight the smallpox vaccine as an example of how privileged we are to live in a post-vaccination era. 

Click here for a brief overview of how smallpox affected the world throughout known history.

Samuel's first birthday party

Ok, sorry these pictures are not in order. I have not figured out a way to easily move pictures around in the posts. Samuel turned one on 6/2/09. Rudi and I celebrated with Samuel (just the 3 of us) on 6/3/09 in the AM after Rudi got home from working an overnight. However, since we are on Guam and the time is 14 hours ahead, we were celebrating Samuel's birthday ON his actual birthday in the States.

On 6/7/09, we had a big party for Samuel. This was keeping with a Chamorro tradition of having a huge celebration for the first birthday. Our neighbors said that when they lived in Hawaii, they spent $13,000 on their daughter/granddaughter's 1st birthday party!! Don't worry, we didn't even spend a tiny fraction of that amount, but just wanted to give you an idea... I know it is somewhat ridiculous to have a big party for a one-year-old, but people kept asking us...oooh, he's turning one, are you gonna have a big bash? I guess we didn't feel pressured, but I figured that if we didn't do a party, then Rudi and I would be liable to do nothing at all, which I didn't want either. Plus, it was super-easy to just have it at the pool by our house--I didn't have to clean our house beforehand, which to me, is the hardest part about having an event at your house! And finally, people in our neighborhood, church, and places of work have been SO LOVING toward us and toward Samuel, so we thought it would be fun to treat them to lunch and their kids to a fun afternoon at least.

Here are the details of his party. We had it at the pool area for our condo complex. We had some traditional Filipino and Chamorro food catered, I baked cookies and brownies, and we of course had cake as well. The party was a "truck" theme, since Samuel likes to play with trucks so much. We had a bouncy house near the pool as well. 

Over 100 people from our neighborhood, church, Rudi's work, and my work came. I had fun, but I'm not sure that Samuel did. First, he slept through the first 30 min. Finally, Rudi woke him from his nap so he could join the party, but he was pretty clingy with me the whole time. When it came time for him to do his thing and smash up his cake and eat it, he just poked at the cake a couple times, then cried. I think he was overwhelmed by tons of people singing happy birthday to him and surrounding him. 

Some of Samuel's church friends at his party on 6/7/09

6/7/09

6/7/09

6/7/09: He looks a little scared

a shot of Samuel's party on 6/7/09

Samuel sucking his fingers in the pool on 6/7/09

some food at his party on 6/7/09

Samuel with me and more of his friends on 6/7/09

Samuel and Daddy on 6/7/09

6/7/09: This is as messy as his cake got before he wanted out of his high chair

Samuel as a 1 year old

playing with new truck he got for his first birthday. I'm not sure who like the truck more: Rudi or Samuel

Rudi and Samuel on 6/3/09.  The chocolate cake is a miniature "Cake Canaveral." Rudi's mom always made this cake for his brother's birthdays. So, even though chocolate cake is not the best option for a one-year-old's birthday, it is now "family tradition."

We were able to share this birthday moment with Rudi's mom via Skype. So in a way, she was there to celebrate as well!

Samuel with a destroyed "Cake Canaveral" on 6/3/09. He did a better job with this cake than with the other one.